Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Oh, I love it when I read that you "thought" about your W.I.P's (thought is inverted commas to emphasise not patronise). Did a lot of that myself today whilst shopping with my mother. Although I did get some done before we met.My character has joined forces with an old man who is reaking havoc amongst the community he lives and I love it. About three hundred written today, but that's not bad in an hour and half.Keep up the thinking, Verla. I bet they'll be great when you get them creased out on paper. Or tapped out on the computer like most high-techs.

So glad it seems you're starting to "feel" this book! Lots of ideas must mean you're starting to get excited about it! YAY!!

Yes! That is exactly the book, Artemesia. I got it for being one of the first 100 people to submit to the YA novel writing contest. I wonder if they send it to everyone who enters? The cost of entering the contest is the price of the book. My devious mind can't help but wonder if this is just their sneaky way of getting all of us to buy the book. Even it that were the case, I wouldn't be upset. The book so far seems well worth the price, anyhow. The book has fresh and different ways of looking at YA novels - ways I've never heard of or thought of before. I like it!

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Verla, I'm glad to hear you're doing well, moving toward a book. Those early days are some of the most productive, in a way, even if there's no tangible progress.

I got little tangible progress in the last two days. Yesterday I made some notes about patterns within my novel, about 800 words total, but they won't go into the book. It just helped me to think through the way my character's love interest is going to affect the plot.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Coffee's going cold again and I am being told off, but that's progress...of sorts.Severe writer's cramp, another cold brew in cafe, 350 written AND mc is just about to get really nasty at school. He's doing all the kind of things I wanted to do at school. Two of the teachers that read it said they could see their students contemplating doing the same if they could get away with it.Truffles tomorrow if my hands can the combination of grating chocolate and writer's cramp!Hope you are still moving forward, Verla.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

I changed three words in my WIP, looked at it, tried not to vomit, and went back to bed for a few more hours. I don't think I'm making progress with this WWII POW novel version of my father's story. I have such STRONG feelings that I can NOT write this as a novel and those feelings are definitely getting in the way of any writing.

Lying in bed I can vividly see scenes that would bring this story so much to life, but when I sit in front of the computer, what comes out on the screen from me is all so stiff and cardboard feeling. What I write is so much less dynamic and vivid than what my father wrote in his own words in his diaries and letters that I just feel sad and then I can't write any more on it. My words are all too young, too short (think picture book text) and too inadequate for the story.

I'm so darned frustrated! I DID write one YA novel, which my agent refuses to send out. She says it would never sell. I have a "beta" reader reading it again right now (Thanks, Aimee!) and so far she's thinking it's pretty good, so maybe I'll make one more set of revisions and request that my agent send it out anyway. She might... or she might not. If she doesn't, maybe I'll see if I can get permission from her to send it out on my own. I'd like to at least TRY to sell it. I have spent 15 years working on it! (It was cutting edge contemporary when I began writing it and now it's historical fiction. LOL!)

I think that's part of my frustration and hesitation about wanting to write my dad's story in a novel form. I do not want to spend another 15 years writing one book, especially when I've already spent 7 years working on the current non-fiction version of it.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Verla, I'm sorry you're at that difficult point in the process. Making the decision to plunge in or change gears is almost impossible, especially when you can look back on long years of hard work on a novel that didn't float. I haven't done a 15-year project...yet...but I've set aside 2-year projects, and I know how that hurts. I hope you and Aimee work out a way to revise that helps you change your agent's mind.

I keep bouncing back and forth between planning and drafting my new YA project. I wrote 1200 words today, mostly notes toward a future draft rather than actual parts of a draft, but I had a few ideas that will take it in a different direction than I thought. I think I like the new way better, but it'll mean setting aside most of what I've written so far. Hopefully I'll settle into a firmer outline eventually.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Verla,I really hope that you can forge ahead.I was alone until John just entered the door and I know he'll hijack the laptop, which unlike high-techers is a blessing. It'll keep me off the computer so I can head into the cafe to get writing session flowing.Got an man teaching mc some sneaky tricks on how to get that revenge plan into action in my w.i.p. Just as well it's only on paper. I'm certain my father would see little traits of him sneaking.Truffle making later. They should be done before tomorrow evening. I will let you know.

Not lazy, but sadly no truffles today, but I did write a bit. Just under four hundred. OT: John ordered me some more chocolate truffle molds, which should arrive just after new year. I'd love to upload a picture of them, but I am useless. A big hint darting in Verla's direction... Talk to you guys tomorrow. Hopefully truffles by Wednesday. I ten-pin bowl on Mondays and that always delays me.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

1300 words today, mostly notes toward a new outline. Yesterday I was a little disappointed when I felt the need to go a whole new direction again, but today I'm liking my new direction a lot. Maybe, maybe this is really going to be it. Maybe I'm really going to "start" writing soon.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

I want to start my draft in 2010, really start it from the beginning. I keep writing stuff, hammering away at the way I'm thinking about the plot. I wrote 1,355 words today, but mostly they won't go into the manuscript. I was just sort of exercising my characters, putting them into rooms together at critical moments in the story and seeing what they'd say. They seem to be behaving like real people, which is good, and in ways that make sense to the story, which is also good. Too good to be true?

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

myriad_of_colors

Guest

Realized (while lying in bed, awake, at 3:59 AM) that I need to scrap my character (whose voice resembled that of a particularly saddened ). So, since I was only 5 pages in, it shouldn't be too hard to change the character and give her a more lively voice, right? Right?? But on we go, to start on my WIP with coffee and a cookie to sustain me! :D

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Woke up with the cat lieing next to me on the pillow this and it :ahh-ed me. He wasn't even snoring like he usually does. That strangely fills me with inspiration. I'll be off to do it later.Myriad, you are definitely my kind of person. Why not switch from the cookie and try a truffle instead? I'll be grating some chocolate later and attending a Christmas Party on Friday.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Myriad, I hear you. Often when I make a new character, the voice is the last part to materialize. Makes for a lot of thrown-away writing, and a lot of worrying on my part.

Today I tried writing part of the climax of my novel, which I suppose was a nervy move since I haven't written much of the rest of the book. When I get to the climax for real I'll probably change it completely, but I solved a problem that was worrying me. I need the MC's love interest to help her figure out how to deal with her family, and he's so much less mature than she is that I was wondering if this could work, but it did. He comes from a stable family (compared to my MC's totally messed up one), and because of that he made a bunch of assumptions about love and trust that blew my MC out of the water. 1,303 words. Word.

I wish I could go back in time and eat a cookie for breakfast. I had millet porridge. What was I thinking?

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

I rewrote the first and third chapters (two of my father's chapters) this morning of my WIP. Changed them from first person to third person POV, which meant totally rewriting and adding a lot more to the chapters. I think they are a bit better this way. I left chapter two in first person - it has a different POV character (my mother) and the story will end in that character, since my father will be dead at the end of the story. Do you think it will be too distracting to have the characters switching from third person to first person depending on who's viewpoint that part of the story is in? Each chapter will be from only one viewpoint....

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Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

myriad_of_colors

Guest

Verla Kay, I think that if you write it as according to your characters' voices, it should be real and natural, not confusing. I, for one, actually like the idea. The different voices, the different flavors and tones of the storyline. Beautiful.

And thank you, Melissa K! Glad I'm not the only one who's gone around sobbing about my characters. (And I thought you wrote mullet porridge- wish I could draw what I imagined and put it up here.)

And thank you for the compliment and offer, thunderingelephants. But I, shamefully, have no idea what a truffle is.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

amykated

Guest

Another 4 pages today. I've found that I am more productive when I just set a page goal rather than a word goal. Isn't that silly? 3-4 seems much more attainable than 1,000 even though those 3-4 pages usually contain around 1,000 words so it's the same difference!

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Verla--For what it's worth, I think it can work. Some books do voice shifts like that and pull it off. The first Octavian Nothing book comes to mind.

Myriad--Mullet porridge! Oh, my. I'm kinda glad you didn't upload a picture of what you were imagining. My mental image was disgusting enough. Fodder for an MG short story?

Amy--That makes sense. I do word counts because I sometimes put in lots of space, especially in the early days like this, when I'm making notes more than really writing the book. If I went back to count pages, I'd end up getting all neurotic about how to count. That's pretty silly, but I go with it. As long as the writing happens, it's all good.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

amykated

Guest

Forget those last two posts. My daughter just deleted the last two chapters I'd finished of my WIP. The thing that really sends me over the edge is I specifically told her to leave my computer alone because I there was a lot of work on it that I hadn't had a chance to save yet. She sat there and nodded her head, then did exactly what I'd asked her not to do. Guessing I'm probably not going to finish this draft in 2010 after all.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Oh, Amykated, that's awful. Is there any chance you can undo? My son did that once, but luckily when I hit the undo button, it all came back.

I have been working on steadily on my WIP--I just haven't had a chance to post about it. Even now, there is a pile of dirty dishes sitting in the kitchen with my name on it. I have completed two chapters. They are with my critique group right now so I can get a reaction on the new direction I am taking on this revision. I have pretty much finished my third chapter as well, but I want to go over it again. In between, I am prepping for the holidays, nursing sick kids, and trying to catch up on my reading for my critique group. One of them hit me out of the blue with a rhyming pb, and I've been trying to figure out how important meter is to rhyming pbs. If it were a straightforward poem, I'd say the meter is off in a couple of stanzas. I guess I'll tell her anyway--she can decide if its important.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Amykated, really sorry for your predicament. That's why I changed completely to longhand. I was shocking at backing up my work and even these days, I am just as bad. I can't even remember how to do it. Luckily John does when he knows I have finished typing a story because he knows how bad I am.Verla, do you think you could do it from a first person narrative and write what you think your father may have said? That might not be confusing. Then again, if a reader is following your, they would more than likely pick up on that., he did it again, Mog was on my pillow all last night. That little snoring beast will be the death of me!

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Oh, Amykated, oh. I'm so, so sorry. That is the worst kind of feeling.

Sometimes work gets better the second time around, though. I seem to remember a story about John Steinbeck's dog destroying the first draft of Of Mice and Men, so that he had to start over from the beginning. I don't know if that's something you can take comfort in.

Verla, I'm glad you're in a better place.

I made a little progress today, got my 1,200 words, but a lot of it didn't feel right. Not sure where I'm going or how to get there.

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

Amykated, what a bummer! Any way you can get a backup? Find a copy of it in a cached directory, something like that?

Verla, that's awesome that the 3rd person is working better - that makes a lot of sense.

Thundering, I can't imagine doing all that longhand myself. Wow.

Well, after working on my WIP almost every day since August, it is off to some cool buddies for a full read. I didn't exactly plan the timing this way, but I'm going off to Spain in a couple of weeks for Christmas with the family, so it'll be the perfect chance to take a break and look at it with fresh eyes in January.

Good luck to everyone for continuing in December! See you back here sometime soon. :-)

Re: I Worked on My WIP Today

mswatkins

Guest

I miss posting on this thread. I started this semester with the greatest of hopes: I finished the first draft of my MS two weeks in the the semester and planned on editing between homework assignments. Well, that hasn't happened. The good news is that winter break is 2 weeks away and I have almost 4 weeks off. Hopefully I can get some serious revisions in between spending time with my kids and painting parts of the house.